The Price of Democracy

It will cost around $13 million to do a runoff election for public advocate, an office with an annual budget of $2 million. Meaning it would be around a third of the cost to declare both candidates public advocate and fund each of them as usual.

If you consider one of them would have been allotted $2 million a year regardless, an additional $8 million for a second Public Advocate over 4 years is still less than the cost of a runoff.